Nongqawuse was the teenage prophetess who triggered the Xhosa Cattle-Killings of 1857-58. It is now believed that she was under instruction from her uncle, Mhlakaza, a famed spirit-medium, to reveal a millenarian prophecy and thus influence the future of the Xhosa. Nongqawuse's prophesy, said to have been delivered by spirits of the ancestors in a pool of water, required the Xhosa people to destroy their cattle and burn their crops.
Such a 'cleansing' was to turn the sun the colour of blood – a signal that the ancient Xhosa chiefs would rise and drive the white man back to the sea, that the cattle-pens and corn stores would be magically filled once more, and that old age and illness would be eliminated. Mhlakaza was able to convince the Xhosa paramount chief Sarili of the truth of the prophecy, and Sarili then ordered his subordinate chiefs and those under British rule in British Kaffraria to slaughter their cattle.
Nongqawuse was subsequently arrested near the Mbashe River and imprisoned on Robben Island, near Cape Town. After several years she was returned to the Eastern Cape and held under a false name – she was the target of death threats by Xhosa who had suffered as a result of the Cattle-Killing.
